Caffeine
by EmilyCulling
Summary: Peter Parker has a very busy life that leaves almost no time for sleep. He has begun to take caffeine pills to help cope with his recent lack of energy, but decides to keep that little detail from Mr. Stark and Aunt May.


Lately Peter has been noticing just how few hours there really are in a day. With school, spidermaning, the Stark internship (which was just a fancy term for messing around in the labs with Mr. Stark) and making time for family and friends, Peter's days were always very busy, to say the least.

The young superhero's average day consisted for waking up at 6am to get ready and walk to school, sitting in classes for 7 hours, spending a couple more hours at decathlon practice, going out as spiderman until about 1 in the morning and then sleeping for a few hours. Any left over time when go to building legos with Ned or having dinner with May, and on the weekends he would be at compound with Mr. Stark.

Because of this extremely busy schedule. Peter never really bothered to do his homework. It wasn't like he needed to do the practice sheet for linear algebra or the textbook questions on chemical equilibrium; Peter still did well on the tests without practicing. It really was stupid that sometimes the teachers would check homework, if he didn't need to do it, why should he even bother. Unfortunately May didn't agree with Peter on this particular topic and when the school had called her one evening after the teenager had failed to hand in a couple of assignments, she had sat Peter down and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he better start doing his homework.

It wasn't that the young superhero didn't enjoy doing homework, it was just that he really had no time to do it. There way no way he could spend less time going out as spiderman (people's lives would be at risk!) and May and Mr. Stark would both kill him if they found out that the boy was skipping school. So that left the only real option being to sleep less and stay up later after his patrol to complete school work.

The idea was easier said than done. At first Peter was able to manage on 3 hours of sleep a night, but as time went on he was finding it exceedingly more and more difficult to stay alert and awake. After about of week with only 21 hours of sleep total, Peter decided he had to figure something out to help him stay awake.

It started out small; having a couple of cups of coffee every day (something Peter never done before, he didn't like the bitter taste). But soon that wasn't enough, especially considered how the superhero's new metabolism burned through the caffeine much faster than a normal human being would. Peter then decided to start drinking coffee and energy drinks, at least a couple bottles or cups of each a day. It helped, but not enough. Peter was, by nature, a very energetic boy and it was very foreign and upsetting for him to felt so tired.

About a week and a half after Peter had started getting only about 3 hours of sleep a night, he discovered something online that seemed absolutely perfect; caffeine pills! At first the idea of using pills to give him energy made the boy a little uneasy but he soon convinced himself that it would really just be the same as drinking a cup of coffee, but taking up less time and not tasting terrible. So it was decided, on the way to school tomorrow morning Peter would stop of a convenience store and pick up a bottle (or maybe two) of caffeine pills.

The label on the bottle warned that it was not recommended for children to take the pills but Peter paid it no attention, as he considered himself, for all intents and purposes, an adult. The label also recommended no more than 1-2 pills every 4 hours, so Peter decided to double the dosage and take 4 pills since he was a superhuman after all and pills affected him differently.

The results of taking the pills were everything Peter had hoped for. He felt amazing and was back to being the old Peter; full of energy. The entire day at school was so much better than any day Peter had had within the past 2 weeks. At lunch the teenager noticed the effects wearing off and he took another 4 more pills, paying no attention to how much time it had been since he took the first 4.

Suddenly the bell rang indicating the end of the school day and, since it was Friday, the end of the week, which meant Happy would be waiting in the parking lot to pick Peter up and drive him to the compound for the night.

Peter bounced out of the classroom, grabbed him backpack and ran all the run the way to the parking lot (but not before taking a couple more pills so he would be at him top game for working the lab with Mr. Stark).

Once the kid reached the parking lot, he practically jumped into the expensive car in the back right corner. He was suddenly feeling the effects of the new pills he had popped, and with his newfound energy, accidently closed the door a little too loudly. The sound caused Happy, the usually stoic man, to jump slightly from the front seat and turn to glare at the kid.

"Hey Happy!" Peter exclaimed ignoring the glare, and giving the man in front of him a beaming smile. The teenager's whole body was practically vibrating with motion, something that definitely didn't go unnoticed by the older man.

"Number one, don't slam the car doors. Number two, stop shaking like that." Happy gruffly responded before turning back to face the front and starting the car.

"Sorry. I'm just so excited to see Mr. Stark and work in the labs with him!" Peter said cheerily.

"Kid, you see him literally every week." Happy eyed Peter stubley through the rearview mirror.

"I know but I'm still excited! So excited that I could just get out of this car and run laps around the track field." As Peter heard the words leave his mouth he realised how odd they sounded, but he did really feel like running around.

"You are a weird, weird kid." Happy said, a small of amount of affection leaking into his voice.

When Peter arrived at the compound, he headed straight down to Mr. Stark's personal lab where he found the older man working on a new Iron Man suit. The two worked together for several hours on various projects, all the while talking about this and that. It always felt so natural and comfortable. Peter loved this time more than anything.

Suddenly the teenager started to feel the exhaustion hit him again and without even thinking about it, he reached into his backpack and pulled out the now half empty bottle of pills. As he twisted the top the bottle, Peter was brought back to his surroundings by the sound of Mr. Stark's voice.

"What's that?"

Peter looked up abruptly; he forgot that Mr. Stark was sitting right in from of him, the man had been quiet for a while, too busy focusing on whatever he had been working on to talk. Mr. Stark's tone wasn't suspicious or upset, just genuinely curious. Peter even considered just telling his mentor the truth, he really didn't think what he was doing was wrong (it was the same as drinking a cup of coffee) but for some reason Peter's gut told him not to. That Mr. Stark might not see it the same way.

"Oh nothing." Peter quickly replaced the lid and stuffed the bottle back into his bag.

"Nothing, huh?" Mr. Stark's voice changed swiftly from uncaring to attentive. He put his tools down and gave Peter his full attention. Peter shifted slightly in seat under the intense stare.

"Yeah, nothing important." The teenager spoke rapidly, "So I was thinking that we could maybe try adding a second parachute to the suit by -"

"Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast young spider. How about you tell me what was in the bottle first."

"Mr. Staaaark." Peter whined, really not wanted to have this conversation.

"Kiiiid" Mr. Stark mocked.

"I don't understand what the big deal is. Do you really have to know everything in my backpack?"

"No, but you are obviously trying to hide something from me, which means I definitely need to know about it." The superhero pause for a moment before speaking again, more seriously. "No offense kid, but you love talking about anything and everything so the fact that you don't want to talk about this makes me think that bottle wasn't just some weird candy or something."

"No, no! Mr. Stark that is what it is!" Peter knew what he was saying wasn't believable, but he couldn't time of anything else to say. "I swear it's just candy I got-"

"You swear?" The billionaire spoke with a dangerous edge.

"Ummm, well..." Peter started to backtrack, knowing how much Mr. Stark hated it when he lied to him.

"Okay enough." Mr. Stark cut him off firmly, "Show me the bottle Peter."

"Please can't you just let it go." Peter whined, internally cringing at the use of his name, which was reserved for serious situations.

The older man sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose; it made him look like frighteningly older than his real age for a moment.

"Why are you fighting me so much on this kid?" The man sounded very confused and more than a little annoyed. "What could you possibly-"

Mr. Stark stopped abruptly and lifted his head to look at Peter dead in the eyes. The gaze was intense and the teenager could tell his mentor was not happy about whatever train of thought was going through his head.

"I swear to god Peter Benjamin Parker if there are fucking drugs in that backpack I am-"

"No no no. Mr. Stark, no!" Peter interrupted his mentor before he could finish his threat. The teenager knew that know that Mr. Stark had thought of drugs he was going to have to come clean about the caffeine pills. "Nothing like that, it's just a bottle of caffeine pills. They aren't bad, just like drinking a cup of coffee."

"What?" Peter could tell that Mr. Stark wasn't expecting this. "Show me. Now."

Peter instantly reached into his backpack and pulled out the bottle handing it to the older man, who took it immediately. Mr. Stark silently examined the bottle, reading all of the labels, before opening the bottle and shaking a few pills into his hand. Peter couldn't help but feel a little annoyed at the distrust his mentor and personal hero had towards him when also took the time to carefully look at the pills to make sure they were what Peter said they were.

"I promise they are only caffeine pills."

"Why do you have a bottle of caffeine pills, kid?" Mr. Stark didn't seem as happy as Peter expected him to be at realizing the teenager wasn't actually on drugs. It was just caffeine, nothing big.

"They aren't bad, it's just like drinking a cup of coffee." The teenager defended himself.

"So you've been taking them?" It didn't escape Peter's notice that Mr. Stark had placed the bottle far out of the kid's reach.

"Only once in a while; it's just like drinking a cup of coffee."

"Then why not just drink a cup of coffee?" Mr. Stark started, "Not that I'm even sure if a kid should be drinking coffee in the first place. Stunts your growth and all."

"I don't like the taste of coffee, it's gross" Peter didn't mention that coffee alone wasn't enough to keep him awake anymore. "And I'm 16 Mr. Stark, not a kid."

"Last time I checked, 16 year olds are kids. Which reminds me, doesn't this bottle say it's not recommended for people under the of 18." He motioned to the bottle to him left, giving Peter a look.

"Recommended being the key word. Plus I'm a superhuman so I figured I'd be fine."

"Hmm, how many of these have you had?" Mr. Stark shook the bottle, "This is half empty."

"One or two a day for about 2 weeks." Even Peter knew better than to admit to taking double the dosage without actually looking into how it would affect him. "It's just like having a cup of coffee a day."

"So you keep saying." The billionaire pauses for a long moment, as if considering the situation. He has been surprisingly calm throughout the entire exchange.

"Yeah, so can I have them back?" Peter reached his hand out, hoping for this whole situation to end.

Mr. Stark just stared at the teenager for another long moment before slowly shaking his head.

"No, I don't think so." Mr. Stark stubley stashed the bottle in one of the drawers near where he was sitting, out of Peter's line of vision. "I don't like the idea of you taking a pill every time you feel tired."

"What? Why?" Peter felt genuinely confused, "It's not like I'm doing drugs."

"Well, I mean, caffeine is a drug."

"Really, Mr. Stark?" Peter spoke slightly louder than necessary, with apparent annoyance present in his voice. "That is not at all the same."

"No, of course not. I didn't mean it like that, but still. I don't want you to take them anymore." Mr. Stark continued quickly seeing that Peter was about to interject. "I'm not upset with you or anything like that, I know you didn't think it was a big deal, and maybe it really isn't, but I don't want you to take them anymore. You shouldn't need to use a pill to give you energy."

"But Mr. Stark, it doesn't do any harm and it makes me feel better. Why wouldn't I take it?" Peter protested.

"Okay now you are definitely not taking them anymore. That is the absolute last thing I ever wanted to hear come out of your mouth. You don't depend on unprescribed pills to alter how you feel. Ever." Mr. Stark's voice turned hard.

Peter suddenly realized why his mentor was acting so weird about this whole situation; he was thinking about his own past. Although the teenager did feel understanding, he still thought it was ridiculous that him taking a couple of perfectly legal and safe caffeine pills was bringing compared to hardcore drugs.

"Come on! That's not what I meant and you know it."

"You're right, I'm sorry." Mr. Stark sighed heavily. "Listen I don't want to turn this into a fight, but I'm sticking but what I said; No more caffeine pills. Got it?"

"You can't just tell me what to do." Peter huffed, thoroughly annoyed.

"Kid. I already told you, this isn't turning into a fight. I am the adult, you are the kid. You are not going to take anymore caffeine pills. Simple as that, I'm not changing my mind." Mr. Stark sighed again, looking very tired. "If you are tired enough to need them, you need to get more sleep. Start going to bed earlier. And if you are feeling really tired during the day just eat some sugar or something. Isn't that what kids are supposed to do?"

Peter remained silent, not liking at all what Mr. Stark was saying to him, but choosing not to argue. He knew Mr. Stark would just win the fight anyways; like he always did.

"Hey Peter." Peter looked up to meet Mr. Stark's eyes. "No more pills, got it?"

Peter knew he couldn't continue to stay awake (which he needed to do) without the pills, but he also knew that he didn't really have any other choice then to agree.

"Yeah, I got it."

"Good boy," Mr. Stark smiled warmly at Peter and leaned over to ruffle his hair. It made feel all warm inside. "Now tell him about that idea you had about you suit."

Peter and Mr. Stark continued to work in the lab for the rest of the night before they decided that it was late enough that Peter might as well stay over for the night. All in all it was a pretty great night, although Peter did feel the lingering guilt about lying to his mentor the whole night. There was no way he was going to stop taking the pills; he needed them to live his busy life. Mr. Stark just didn't understand. It wasn't like they were dangerous or anything. They were just like drinking a cup of coffee...


End file.
